Halleck's New English Literature eBook

The plays of Phillips not infrequently lack that clinching
power that stretches the interest taut. Many
scenes are admirably spectacular, suggestive of richly
decorated tapestries, which hang separately in spacious
rooms; but the plays need more forceful dramatic action,
moving through changes to a climax. Phillips’s
diction, though sometimes rhetorical, is also often
ornately beautiful and highly poetical. We feel
that even in his plays, he is greater as a poet than
as a dramatist.

CELTIC DRAMATISTS

Strong national feeling, interest in the folklore
and peasant life of Ireland, and ambition to establish
a national theater, have led to a distinct and original
Irish drama. In 1899, with a fund of two hundred
and fifty dollars, Lady Gregory, William Butler Yeats,
G.W. Russell, and other playwrights and patrons
succeeded in establishing in Dublin the Irish Literary
Theater now known as the Irish National Theater.

The object of this theater is twofold. In the
first place, it aims to produce “literary”
plays, not the vapid, panoramic kind that merely pass
away the time. In the second place, the Irish
plays present fabled and historical Irish heroes and
the humble Irish peasant.

Patriotism inspired many writers to assist in this
national movement. Some gathered stories from
the lips of living Irish-speaking peasants; others
collected and translated into English the old legends
of heroes. Dr. Douglas Hyde’s translations
of The Five Songs of Connacht (1894) and The
Religious Songs of Connacht (1906) are valuable
works and have greatly influenced the Irish writers.

Lady Augusta Gregory.—­Lady Gregory, born
in 1852, in Roxborough, County Galway, has made some
of the best of these translations in her works, Cuchulain
of Muirthemma, and Gods and Fighting Men.
“These two books have come to many as a first
revelation of the treasures buried in Gaelic literature,
and they are destined to do much for the floating
of old Irish story upon the world. They aim to
do for the great cycles of Irish romance what Malory
did for the Arthurian stories."[16]

[Illustration: LADY GREGORY.]

Lady Gregory wrote also for the Irish Theater plays
that have been acted successfully not only in Ireland
but in England and in America. Among her best
serious plays are The Gaol Gate (1906), a present-day
play, the hero of which dies to save a neighbor, The
Rising of the Moon (1907), and Grania (1912).
McDonough’s Wife (1913) is an excellent
brief piece with an almost heroic note at the close.
The great vagabond piper, McDonough, master of wonderful
music, returns from wandering, to find his wife dead,
and, because of his thriftlessness, about to be denied
honorable burial. McDonough steps to the door,
pipes his marvelous tunes, and immediately the village
flocks to do homage to his wife.